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The Cap'n Toby Show
| }} /Credits|Credits}} /Gallery|Gallery}} /Transcript|Transcript}} }} "The Cap'n Toby Show" is the twelfth episode of the first season of The Lone Gunmen. Synopsis The Gunmen try to solve the murders of two FBI agents who were working undercover on Langly's favourite TV show. Summary The Lone Gunmen investigate a Chinese spy ring operating out of a television show for kids. Langly grew up with the show and he can’t believe the host, Captain Toby, could be a spy. Synopsis Richard Langly reminisces about his childhood on a farm but he hated the farm and all the chores. Watching television was the happiest he was during all that. He remembers his favorite show was the Cap’n Toby Show either because he grew up in landlocked Nebraska or because the eponymous Captain Toby was such a decent human being. Now that is shattered though since in the present, he is watching him get arrested. Glen Burnie, Maryland - 6 Days Earlier A blonde woman with red colored sunglasses walks uneasily through a shopping mall. She notices a dour looking man behind her, pretending to window shop. She hurries her pace as he pursues, now abandoning any attempt to hide his motives. She manages to get into the elevator, while he crashes into a man in a hot dog costume. In the elevator, another man is waiting for her. He draws his gun. Outside, the other man heads for the stairs while stepping over the hot dog costumed man’s free samples. When her original pursuer reaches the parking garage, he finds the man from the elevator dead on the ground with a dart in his chest. She comes out from behind a car and begins kicking and punching him, but he draws his gun. She raises her arms in surrender, as a dart shooter on her wrist pops down and gets him in the chest. He crumbles and dies while she leaves with his weapon. Elsewhere, John Byers, Richard Langly, & Melvin Frohike are looking through various mainstream newspapers as Jimmy Bond serves them pancakes for breakfast. He inquires about why they are doing this and they explain that they are looking for news stories that slipped through the cracks. Frohike spelled it out for Jimmy. “These guys have to report the stories they are handed. Plus they all work for the man. So their coverage only goes so deep.” Frohike manages to spot two obituaries of men killed by heart attacks who are from the stage hand’s union. Langly checks the 911 calls of that day to realize that they both died in the same mall on the same day. Frohike and Bond go to the mall where the hot dog costumed man recounts where he found the two men’s bodies in the parking garage. He brings up “Rosie” who caught the elevator he and one of the dead men had just missed. He figured she must have just missed finding them dead. Frohike collects a dart from the parking garage floor. Byers and Langly check out the studio where the two stage hands worked. Langly becomes excitable when he realizes it is the Cap’n Toby show after the host walks by. They watch Captain Toby perform the promo for the new show which bothers the writer/producer John Gillnitz because of a bubble pipe. “What’s wrong with the pipe?” “Well, an argument could be made that it promotes smoking.” “John, it’s a bubble pipe, an argument could be made that it promotes blowing bubbles.” Gillnitz continues to push his ideas for the show to the point where Captain Toby leaves in disgust. Byers questions Gillnitz about the two deceased stage hands, Adam Vaughan and Eric Rice. He convinces Gillnitz to give them their personnel files. Back at HQ, Frohike accidentally gets himself with the dart and asks Jimmy to suck out the poison. Regrettably he starts to suck the poison out of Frohike’s chest moments before Yves Adele Harlow arrives, informing them it is no longer poison. It was a unique toxin from Communist China that degrades rather fast. Elsewhere, Captain Toby is speaking on the telephone in Mandarin. Frohike discovers that the dead stage hands were actually undercover FBI agents from the Chinese analytical division, so the Lone Gunmen decide to investigate the people working on the show. One of them must be a spy. They remind Langly that the host Captain Toby might be the spy and he grudgingly admits it is a possibility. Langly, Byers, & Frohike go to check things out at the show. Frohike goes around taking pictures of the show’s crew so they can use facial recognition to identify spies. In this task, he manages to scare a little girl who wanted to talk to Captain Toby in his dressing room. When Captain Toby shows up, he takes the girl to her mother who has been looking for her. Frohike finds a piece of paper in the dressing room with Chinese characters on it and thinks it is proof of Captain Toby being a spy. Meanwhile in the mall, Jimmy and Yves stake out the woman in the rose colored sunglasses. Bond sees her in the copy shop and follows her until he falls off a balcony and lands on a table of doughnuts. Yves rushes to Jimmy’s aid just in time to be detained along with Jimmy by the woman who reveals herself to be a federal agent. The agent interrogates Jimmy Bond & Yves Harlow after she shoes off the paramedics who patch up Jimmy’s cracked rib. She announces herself as Agent Blythe of the CIA and she intimidates both of them with her cold demeanor. After she threatens Yves about her true identity, Jimmy admits he is an investigative journalist. Back at the show, Byers and Langly learn from the producer Gillnitz that the “Cap’n Toby Show” is going to be syndicated in China. When Byers & Langly are rejoined by Frohike, Byers suggests that the show is an information conduit to the Chinese. It could be coded into the audio or the video easily. Frohike shows Langly the note in Chinese, apologizing to Langly that his childhood hero is a spy. A moment later the FBI show up to arrest Captain Toby (Fred Tabalowski) with Agent Blythe, Jimmy Bond, & Yves Harlow. Jimmy apologizes for telling the authorities as they watch Tabalowski get arrested. At headquarters, they all watch the news report of the arrest on television. This report claims that Tabalowski funneled secrets to the Chinese through the show but can’t identify a motive. They bring up the man’s wife being a naturalized Chinese immigrant as the only possibility. Langly refuses to believe that Tabalowski would kill two FBI agents and Yves agrees having translated the note in Chinese as only a recipe for potstickers. Frohike points out that when he searched the dressing room he didn’t find the microfilm so it is possible it was planted during the arrest by Blythe. Byers says the only way they could prove Blythe is the true traitor is to figure out how information was being transmitted on the show. At the set, Gillnitz and Wayne the operator of Clarence the Crab are drinking to their sorrows; Wayne because Tabalowski and his wife are his friends and Gillnitz because he’s lost the show. After Wayne tells him off, he is sent away by Gillnitz who realizes how the information is being given to the Chinese: the “magic porthole.” He explains how it is the one thing that Gillnitz doesn’t control on the show to Agent Blythe who promptly murders him with her dart shooter. Tabalowski returns to the show’s set and enlists Wayne to help him with his last show which will have the press as an audience. The four Lone Gunmen and Yves Adele Harlow arrive at the set and scatter to take a look around. Harlow notices an invoice in the trash and asks Jimmy about what Blythe was doing at the mall. He mentions seeing her at the copy place and that she left when she saw she was being watched. Harlow and Bond check out the copy place and discover the porthole transparency for the show. Blythe appears behind them and hands her red colored glasses to Yves. Looking through them, ink that isn’t ordinarily visible is painted on it. Blythe tells them to come with her, dart shooter pointed at Yves’s back. At the show, Tabalowski is trying to explain how America is his home and it was founded on some good ideas but then Gillnitz’s corpse pops down from behind him because of Frohike playing with the ropes backstage. On the roof, Blythe tries to kill Yves but Jimmy takes the dart for her. Yves Adele Harlow and Blythe fight with Yves easily defeating her. The dart was blocked by the bandages for the cracked rib. Langly narrates about the importance of shows for children with characters like Captain Toby while they watch the new show with Wayne as the host and Tabalowski as the producer. Tabalowski thanks them for vindicating him while mistaking Langly for a woman. Background Information Introductory Details *This episode is also known as the "Lost Episode", as its initial airing was not with the original group of episodes in the first and only season of The Lone Gunmen; it was instead aired three weeks after the series finale, "All About Yves", and was the only episode that was aired out of sync with the series' production order. As a result, it was the last episode of The Lone Gunmen to air. Locations * Langly grew up in Saltville, Nebraska. * The Shopping mall is located at Glen Burnie, Maryland. * "The New Cap'n Toby Show" is recorded at North Shore Studios, Glen Burnie, Maryland. Memorable Quotes * "Growing up, man it's a bitch!" - Richard "Ringo" Langly * "There are dumb plans, and then there are dumb plans. And then there's this." - Yves Adele Harlow * "Put the wind at your backs, and a song in your hearts" - Fred Tabalowski (as Cap'n Toby) *"Even in this bold new century, kids need a friend who's always looking out for them. Someone who'll help them grow up strong and true. And who will never make fun of their hair. . . .That last one's important." - Richard "Ringo" Langly Cultural References * Langly remembers watching "Bozo the Clown", "Captain Kangaroo", and "Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop". * Jimmy reads a "Wizard of Id" cartoon. Nitpicks Other Episode Notes * This is one of several episodes to use the character name John Gillnitz. * "The New Cap'n Toby Show" airs weekday mornings at 7. * The end credits begin in the style of Cap'n Toby's porthole. Continuity Cast Starring *Bruce Harwood as John Fitzgerald Byers *Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike *Dean Haglund as Richard Langly *Stephen Snedden as Jimmy Bond *Zuleikha Robinson as Yves Adele Harlow Guest Starring *Tom Poston as Fred Tabalowski *Ben Bass as John Gillnitz *Cyia Batten as Agent Blythe Co-Starring *Douglas Newell as Wayne the Puppeteer Featuring *Jasmin Dring as Captain Toby's Wife *Brian Drummond as Lead Agent *Michael Eklund as Wiener Man *Jodelle Michah Ferland as Mary *Zahf Paroo as Reporter #2 *Eric Pospisil as Young Langly *Rekha Sharma as First EMT *Norma Wick as Reporter *Darryl Scheelar as First Man *Clayton Watmough as Second Man References SEMICOLON-SEPARATED LIST OF ITEMS/LOCATIONS REFERENCED IN EPISODE (BUT NOT LINKED TO IF ALREADY LINKED IN SUMMARY OR GUEST STARS SECTIONS) Category:Lone Gunmen episodes